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Mystic
Congregational Church, UCC Sermon
from October 23, 2005 Scriptures: Someone
once commented that there are four stages to life—childhood, youth, adulthood
and, “Gee, you look great!” No doubt, ageing is one of those ambivalent
things about life: what one of us
as a teenager didn’t think forty was ancient, and what one of us hasn’t
stopped to think as we pass the decade markers of 30, 50, 70, and 90.
That our days are few and fragile is an insight that intrudes into our
consciousness at predictable times like the inevitable march of the decade. Then
there’s that flap-up side head reminder that has nothing to do with age, like
having the word “cancer” said in the same sentence as your name or the name
of someone you love; or watching a business built on your blood, sweat and tears
evaporate like a raindrop in the sun; or realizing too late in the game that
hearses don’t come with luggage racks, and some of what you need for your
journey is beyond what you can hold in your hand. Welcoming
a child into your life is another opportunity to reflect.
Once you stop wondering if there was some crash course in parenting that
you must have missed, you start wondering just what this child would be like,
and what you would be like as a parent; then watching through the years as that
child makes his or her own way for better or for worse. There’s
a whole other invitation to ponder this rich stuff called life. There are countless opportunities to measure our days against
the yardstick of our dreams. Daniel
Clendenin of the Journey with Jesus Foundation writes just a few days before his
fiftieth birthday: So if you live anything like a normal life, sorrow and heartache will
visit you sooner or later, and, certainly, by the time you’re fifty, whether
through your parents, spouse, children, friends, boss, job, the stock market,
the random roll of the genetic dice, plain old bad luck, if the Christian can
use the word “luck”, or what Wendell Berry once called our “irremediable
ignorance”, you discover that life is hard. It was the
opening line of M. Scott Peck’s best-selling book, The Road Less Travelled. “Life
is difficult.” Psalm 90 is one of
those writings that encourages us to ponder life.
It’s attributed to Moses but my own study doesn’t support that claim.
I can understand why Moses might have penned such a lament but I don’t
think it’s really his. But you
can see where, perhaps he might have had thoughts like this.
After all, he wandered in the desert for forty years with a bunch of
cranky, fickle ex-slaves. It is
enough to make one a little jaded. Then
there was that whole golden calf debacle that we talked about a few weeks ago.
Finally, there’s today’s reading where you learn that, after all that
Moses went through with this grumpy group of people, he didn’t even make it to
the Promised Land. He sees it only
from afar and dies without ever having set foot on that Promised Soil.
It makes you wonder if things might have been different if they had asked
for directions. So while this
Psalm might be attributed to Moses, it is, actually, more likely an
anonymously-written poem that speaks a truth about the human experience.
Whoever put quill to paper captured something that we all know—that
life is short; stuff happens; it’s not always fair.
But, more importantly, even in the midst of that undeniably astute
observation, there is another even more important truth.
And it is this—that how we live out the days entrusted to us matters;
and no matter what, God will still be there. The Psalmist says
it this way, “To teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”
It is a great phrase—gaining a wise heart.
It’s a God thing and it’s a simple thing although it takes a lifetime
of discipline to discern the presence of God in each and every moment of each
and every day. In part, I think it
means having a defined spirituality which means having a sense of place in the
world, having a sense of where God’s dreams of creation fits in with ______
little life; or, as one friend commented to me, “It’s when you realize that
the realize is not your oyster. It’s
God’s oyster. If you live
faithfully, you cause just enough irritation to produce a pearl here and
there.” Having a sense of
place in the world is also about nurturing that awareness of the holy,
recognizing that each and every day holds countless opportunities for knowing
God if we’re paying attention to quality of presence that allows us to live
fully in the moment. It’s part of
what I think it means to know the emotion of ecstasy. Ruth Gendler, in
an outstanding book titled “The Book of Qualities”, describes ecstasy in
this way, “Ecstasy knows many things but doesn’t talk much.
If you try to pin her down, she will answer you with music.
You have to decide for yourself what she really means.
Ecstasy runs in inns for travelers high up in the mountains. It’s an interesting job because she’s never quite sure
who’s going to show up. There are
no reservations here. The meals are
always free. But the inn is not
easy to find because it’s not on the main road, and the signs often disappear.
Do not attempt the journey if you’re in a rush, or if you’re scared
of yourself.” Ecstasy is one
fruit of attending to that discipline of gaining a wise heart. There’s another
component to it, as well, that I think has to do with having a sufficient sense
of meaning in work and in our relationships.
When Jesus called his disciples, he said, “I will you fishers of
men.” Later, for political
correctness, we add women as well. It
wasn’t that fishing for fish was such a bad job.
It was that there was a different meaning to be found in reaching people
with the good news of new life available to them as God’s followers. One of the crises
of modernity is that many people are involved in work that has little meaning
and little sense of accomplishment. When
work is broken down into little tasks and you don’t have the opportunity to
see the end product, it’s hard to stay motivated.
Jobs that don’t require human interaction run the risk of separating us
from the opportunity to meaningfully interact with others in ways that we
enforce our sense of place in the world and being part of the human community. It doesn’t mean
that they’re all bad jobs and that we should all quit and go live on a farm
and sell home-made granola at the farmers’ market.
It does mean that we need to create in our lives opportunities to
meaningfully relate to others and to stay connected to the rhythm of the world
in all of its seasons and cycles; tending a garden, going to Bible study,
attending a book study, hiking in the woods, volunteering at the Shelter,
connecting with someone else in a meaningful way, doing something that reminds
us that we are more than the sum total of what we accomplish or fail to
accomplish on any given day. It is
part of gaining a wise heart. Through my years
of working for a hospice, we had a saying about the folks that “There’s
nobody on their death bed who said ‘Gee, I sure wish I had worked more.’”
The most spiritually-vital people I know are those who have meaningful,
deep, and committed relationships with others.
I don’t mean only in their marriages.
I’m talking about those intimate friendships, that person with whom you
can share anything—the deepest fears and longings, your spiritual baggage,
what you believe, what you don’t believe, what you’re not sure whether you
believe or not, all of it. You are
blessed if that person is your spouse or partner.
You’re doubly blessed if you have a friend, as well.
We all need that person we can call at three o’clock in the morning, if
we need to, for whatever reason, and know that it would okay. Gaining a wise
heart is also, I think, about having a sufficient sense of sin.
The thing about sin is that we either overdo it completely or we ignore
it. There doesn’t seem to be some
middle ground for us post-modern liberals in understanding what this business of
sin is all about. For me, the definition is “it’s whatever separates us
from God”. It’s as simple as
that. Having a sufficient sense of
sin is about acknowledging that, every single day of our lives, there is
something that would separate us from God—business, busyness, lack of desire,
guilt about some part of lives that’s outside the intention of God. It’s not possible to be in an honest relationship with God
if you’re stealing from your employer, if you’re being unfaithful to your
partner, if you’re running eighteen hours a day up the ladder that’s leaning
on the wrong wall. Having a
sufficient sense of sin is one of the fruits of solitude.
That’s another part of gaining a wise heart.
Part of how we figure out where we are in God’s agenda for the world is
simply to shut up and listen. Mother
Teresa more eloquently said, “We cannot put ourselves directly in the presence
of God if we do not practice internal and external silence.
In silence we find new energy and true unity.” Silence gives us
a new outlook on everything, and part of that outlook is grounding in the stuff
that is important to God and not just to us.
It’s the discipline of turning off that multimedia blitz, that constant
sensory overload, and consciously seeking out time and place to be alone.
The average American spends less than five minutes per day in total
silence. It’s little wonder we
struggle with what it is that God desires for us.
God can’t get a word in edgewise.
Once we’re
alone, then there’s that whole discipline of turning off that internal media
blitz. Nurturing inner silence is a
lifelong discipline but it is only there that our relationship with God is
strengthened and deepened. Like any
other relationship, ours with God isn’t going to grow if we don’t pay
attention to it. As the hymn
writer, Fanny Crosby, wrote, Oh, the pure delight of a single hour that before Thy throne I spend, When I kneel in prayer and You would be my guide, I commune as friend with friend. Gaining
a wise heart is about friendship with God. It is the discipline and joy of
living each day as the gift that it is, present to the moment, connected to God
and to one another, knowing that for all we know, there is much that we don’t
know, and living into the possibility that that creates. Daniel
Clendenin concludes his reflection on turning fifty with these words: The psalmist provokes me to take inventory of my fleeting life, to seek
a heart of wisdom, and to embrace rather than resist what is, at any rate,
inevitable. In my human
imperfections and limitations, the psalmist insists I can discover divine
consolation. The psalmist points me
to confidence, to joy and gratitude. In
a culture of victimization, it takes audacity to celebrate with gratitude for
life itself, even in the midst of problems.
In a society that winks at greed, and encourages entitlement, contentment
with your station in life supposes a radical experience of grace.
In a world of staggering pain and inequality, there is still cause to
enjoy every sandwich. It’s
a God thing and it’s a good thing—learning, seeking after a wise heart.
Amen. |